Helpful Score: 2
This is one of my very favorite mystery series. I'd like for it to be one of yours, too, but in order for that to happen, you'll have to check any political correctness you may have at the door before you walk into the Toussaint Saloon to meet with characters that are so fully fleshed you'd swear they were alive. They are also farmers and ranchers, and their language may be a tad saltier than you're used to.
Gabriel Du Pré is a Métis Indian and occasional cattle brand inspector in the wilds of Montana. Nowadays he helps out the local sheriff when he isn't playing some of the best fiddle music you've ever heard in your life. Du Pré is probably more than a little bit different from the characters you're used to reading about:
"I checked you out," said Vook. "Du Pré is a good guy, they say, real good guy, runs on Bull Durham and bourbon and he pisses on the little laws but he's good about the big ones."
Maddy Collins was an old lady who lived on the edge of Toussaint and pretty much kept herself to herself, but everyone in town is upset when her body is found inside her small house. Someone had bashed in her head. Who on earth would want to do something like that to a person who'd never caused harm to another soul? Maddy's death doesn't set well with Du Pré, and he starts looking for the murderer. When he and Madelaine, the lady in his life, find out that drugs might have something to do with the woman's death, they ask an expert what they should be looking for. The expert gives them some things to look for, and--since they live in a small town--they know exactly who's involved.
An old woman's death, drug trafficking in a small Montana town...and then the Wolf Mountains start to burn. Everything Du Pré holds dear, including his own life, is at risk.
Peter Bowen is a master craftsman. The Métis speech patterns, at first strange to the ear, become more familiar with each book until they're completely natural. The independent spirit of all the people living in and around this small town feels familiar. When faced with a problem, they prefer to deal with it themselves. No agencies or government bureaucrats for the people of Toussaint. Even Du Pré's fiddle playing has a life of its own. Bowen's prose are lean and totally evocative of the place and the people of which he writes. There's not an unnecessary scene or phrase to be found.
If you'd like to spend a couple of hours with some real characters taking care of business, if you'd like to get a feel for the real West, you can't go wrong with a Gabriel Du Pré mystery by Peter Bowen.
Gabriel Du Pré is a Métis Indian and occasional cattle brand inspector in the wilds of Montana. Nowadays he helps out the local sheriff when he isn't playing some of the best fiddle music you've ever heard in your life. Du Pré is probably more than a little bit different from the characters you're used to reading about:
"I checked you out," said Vook. "Du Pré is a good guy, they say, real good guy, runs on Bull Durham and bourbon and he pisses on the little laws but he's good about the big ones."
Maddy Collins was an old lady who lived on the edge of Toussaint and pretty much kept herself to herself, but everyone in town is upset when her body is found inside her small house. Someone had bashed in her head. Who on earth would want to do something like that to a person who'd never caused harm to another soul? Maddy's death doesn't set well with Du Pré, and he starts looking for the murderer. When he and Madelaine, the lady in his life, find out that drugs might have something to do with the woman's death, they ask an expert what they should be looking for. The expert gives them some things to look for, and--since they live in a small town--they know exactly who's involved.
An old woman's death, drug trafficking in a small Montana town...and then the Wolf Mountains start to burn. Everything Du Pré holds dear, including his own life, is at risk.
Peter Bowen is a master craftsman. The Métis speech patterns, at first strange to the ear, become more familiar with each book until they're completely natural. The independent spirit of all the people living in and around this small town feels familiar. When faced with a problem, they prefer to deal with it themselves. No agencies or government bureaucrats for the people of Toussaint. Even Du Pré's fiddle playing has a life of its own. Bowen's prose are lean and totally evocative of the place and the people of which he writes. There's not an unnecessary scene or phrase to be found.
If you'd like to spend a couple of hours with some real characters taking care of business, if you'd like to get a feel for the real West, you can't go wrong with a Gabriel Du Pré mystery by Peter Bowen.
Ninth in the Gabriel duPre series, and probably better for a new reader to start earlier in the series and become more acquainted with the characters. I liked this one, there's more mystery and less political biting at incompetent government, but you still get a bit of that. There's a murder to be solved, of course, and this time it's tied in with the tragedy of drug use in rural communities. As always it's the language and the imagery that really hook the reader. The description of the dry conditions, just waiting for a spark, are very vivid. Again as always there is more than a little touch of the supernatural that allows DuPre to figure it out, although this time it's Madeleine who gets the action. I'm not sure the twist at the end was all that necessary, it seemed to me that what Bowen had already set up would have been enough explanation. But all in all, I enjoyed it. Six more to go in the series.
Andrew K. (kuligowskiandrewt) -
I am a fan of Peter Bowen's Montana Mysteries, with (now retired) brand inspector and Metis musician Gabriel du Pre and his community. Du Pre is a simple man in the best sense of the word â the best and quickest way to get to the heart of a situation (or of a person) is to look past the extraneous stuff and concentrate on the basics.
In Ash Child, du Pre must deal with the driest weather conditions that his community has faced in 100 years, and with the inevitable wildfires that come with it. He must also deal with some unexplained deaths, including an elderly woman on the edges of the community and of a pair of high school sweethearts who will never know if their relationship would last past graduation. Who is killing these people â is it an outsider, or a local, or is it the result of multiple murders for multiple causes? And just how IS the government's efforts to fight the wildfires going, and will it interfere with the murder investigation?
Not my favorite book in the series to date â but close. Highly recommended.
RATING: 5 stars.
In Ash Child, du Pre must deal with the driest weather conditions that his community has faced in 100 years, and with the inevitable wildfires that come with it. He must also deal with some unexplained deaths, including an elderly woman on the edges of the community and of a pair of high school sweethearts who will never know if their relationship would last past graduation. Who is killing these people â is it an outsider, or a local, or is it the result of multiple murders for multiple causes? And just how IS the government's efforts to fight the wildfires going, and will it interfere with the murder investigation?
Not my favorite book in the series to date â but close. Highly recommended.
RATING: 5 stars.
Crystal meth, brushfires, and a murderer on the loose threaten Du Pré's tranquil Montana town.
Drought has come to Toussaint, Montana, and appendicitis has stricken the Mtis Indian tracker and investigator Gabriel Du Pré. His appendix is bad enough, but what really hurts is being trapped in the hospital when he learns that Maddy Collins has been killed. As far as Du Pré knows, no one in town had cause to dislike the harmless old coot, much less bash her head in with a cast-iron hatchet. When the doctors release him, he goes looking for answers.
Du Pré suspects a pair of boys who, despite their good upbringing, have fallen in with a gang of meth dealers. Not long after the murder, they vanish. As the town is threatened by a forest fire, he hunts for the two young men, not knowing whether they are alive or dead. When the inferno reaches Toussaint, no one will be safe.
Drought has come to Toussaint, Montana, and appendicitis has stricken the Mtis Indian tracker and investigator Gabriel Du Pré. His appendix is bad enough, but what really hurts is being trapped in the hospital when he learns that Maddy Collins has been killed. As far as Du Pré knows, no one in town had cause to dislike the harmless old coot, much less bash her head in with a cast-iron hatchet. When the doctors release him, he goes looking for answers.
Du Pré suspects a pair of boys who, despite their good upbringing, have fallen in with a gang of meth dealers. Not long after the murder, they vanish. As the town is threatened by a forest fire, he hunts for the two young men, not knowing whether they are alive or dead. When the inferno reaches Toussaint, no one will be safe.
